Thursday, September 8, 2011

Gnocchi knew me in 2006 but it's only now that we became friends

The first time I saw how gnocchi was made was when I went to a cooking demo with my girlfriend ,Kam at an Italian Food Demonstration in 2006 at an Italian Restaurant in Bangsar called The Mango Tree. The chef is a friend of ours. This restaurant no longer exist. The chef and his family has moved to Ipoh.

After the demonstration I never followed up and made any gnocchi at home. That is because back then, I was really not interested in cooking at all. To be honest, I was not a big fan of gnocchi but after I tasted the gnocchi from this recipe that I am about to share with you, I would say I could even have a craving for it.

It has now become a trademark dish for me. So I will share with you this wonderful recipe of spinach ricotta gnocchi with gorgonzola sauce. I urge you to try it because the delightful smooth texture of gnocchi, with the edgy flavor of the creamy sauce, is insanely pleasing to the palette. I poured myself and my Quay Lo a glass of white wine each and we enjoyed the meal. We both said at the same time after our bite of the last piece of gnocchi on our plates… Aaah…DIVINE!

This recipe was featured in Asian Food Channel (Official) Facebook page on 5th September 2012

Ingredients for Gnocchi:

3 ounces fresh or frozen spinach

1 egg

2 tsp salt

1 1/2 pounds whole milk ricotta cheese, drained of excess moisture

1/3 cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

Pinch of nutmeg

Method:

1 Fill a medium saucepan halfway with water and heat until bubbles just begin to form. Add spinach and cook until tender, about 1 minute. Drain. Let spinach cool enough to touch, then squeeze as much moisture as you can out of it. You can also use a potato ricer if you have one to squeeze the excess water out of the spinach.

2 Add the spinach, egg, salt, and half of the ricotta to a food processor. Pulse until completely blended. Transfer mixture to a large bowl, mix in the remaining ricotta and the Parmesan cheese. Stir a pinch of nutmeg into the flour. Add the flour in by hand, starting with a half of the flour. Mix everything with your hands until the mixture holds together as a pliable dough.

3 Put the dough out on a lightly floured smooth, clean surface. Knead gently for about a minute, adding additional flour if needed, if the dough is too sticky. (At this point, if you wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate for an hour, it will be easier to roll out.) When the dough is smooth and pliable, and still just a little bit sticky, divide it into 4 portions, each the size of an orange.

4 Flour your hands lightly. Using both hands, and a light touch, roll the dough out with a back and forth motion, starting at the center and stretching the dough out, to form a roll. This is the tricky part. You don't want to put so much pressure so that you compress the dough, but you do need enough pressure to create a rope of dough. The trick is to stretch the dough sideways as you are rolling. Once the segment you are working on gets to be about a foot long, you may find it easier to cut it in half, and then start working on each separately.

Roll the dough out until the roll is about the size of a middle finger. (Note that if your hands or the board is a little too floured, you may not have enough traction between your skin and the dough to easily stretch it sideways.) Cut each roll into 1-inch pieces.

5 Hold a fork at a 45% angle with its tines facing down on the work board, the curved part of the fork facing away from you. Starting with the curved outside bottom of the fork, press each piece of dough up along the length of the tines. Let the gnocchi fall back down. This is a pretty quick motion, the result is an indentation of the fork tines on one side of the gnocchi, and an indentation of your fingertip on the other side.

Place the gnocchi on a lightly floured cookie sheet. At this point they can be cooked, or kept in the refrigerator several hours or even overnight for prep minded chefs.

6 To cook the gnocchi, fill a large wide pot half-way with water. Bring to a boil, add 1 teaspoon of salt for every quart of water. Once the salt has dissolved, gently drop the gnocchi in the water, one by one. Try to do this in a way that the gnocchi are not falling in on top of each other, but rest on the bottom of the pan in a single layer. As the gnocchi cooks, they will rise to the surface of the water after a couple minutes. Use a slotted spoon to remove the risen gnocchi from the pot, place in a serving bowl. Sometimes the gnocchi can stick a little at the bottom. If you suspect this, nudge them a little to unstick them. As you remove some gnocchi, you can add a few more to the pan.

Gorgonzola Sauce

Ingredients:

½ C whipping cream

100gms gorgonzola cheese, cut into cubes

¼ C chives, chopped

¼ tsp ground black pepper

Method:

Bring cream to near boil. Add cheese a bit at a time while stirring until well blended. Pour over gnocchi and finish with black ground pepper and chives.

You can serve your gnocchi with a meat chop of your choice, such as a small beef steak, or chicken, or as the "primo" course in a full multi course Italian meal. I have served it with a fried chicken chop and garnished with truffle balsamic in these pictures.

I totally agree that gnocchi is fantastic when made at home. The ricotta version (rather than potato) is particularly easy to make. I love the lovely colour of your spinach gnocchi, and the gorgonzola sauce - double yum!

It seems Gnocci and you became good friends:) That is good because Gnocci pretends to be an easy dish but if you are not carefull it can be either too hard or too soft:) Yours is just perfect:)You have earned award on my blog:))Deserved;)

This dish is so interesting! I don't cook Italian food that often (I'm still trying to learn the ropes on traditional Asian dishes), but this one is just calling me out to try in the future. Bookmarked this recipe now.

I made gnocchi once because I was interested to see what it tasted like- I've never actually seen it being made, I've just seen photos on blogs :) I thought it was okay, but not that great but after hearing you describe this recipe, I'm quite interested to try it!

The gnocchi looks so good! I have only ever made sweet potato gnocchi before, and although I ate it voraciously when I made it, I think it was because I wanted to believe it was better & fluffier than it actually was. I will need to try this recipe!

im glad you finally became friends with gnocchi :) im sure the friendship will last way into the future :)i adore the green colour the spinach gave the gnocchi in your dish..have made a similar dish before but my family couldnt stand my gorgonzola sauce even tho i loved it! (their loss :P)

It was really interesting reading your detail explanations. I think I tried gnocchi once or twice at a nice restaurant, but it's not something that I always choose to eat (or to cook). But I'm really excited to try having this again and maybe I change my mind and try making it myself too! Love your Gorgonzola sauce! I drool...

That just looks so very lovely! I don't make gnocchi that often for home, but used to make it for the restaurant with pumpkin. I love the blue cheese sauce you made too, I have never heard of truffle balsamic- but now I want some!

@ZoeYes I am so happy I did. I was skeptical if I can get it right the first time I made it. I was lucky it came out right the first time. I think I do better cooking than baking.

@DzoliFirst, thanks so much for thinking of me for the award. I REALLY appreciate it. I hope you do not mind that I do not display it on my blog yet. I need to find time to see how to have dedicate page for all the awards passed on to me by all my blogger friends. I have been procrastinating this task.

@Wi, @VonI look forward to see your post on gnocchi.

@SoniaSure, sure, I think another lunch at my place is overdue.

@mNhLYes, try and let me know how you like it.

@yummychunklethahaha, I like your witty comment!

@Ah TzeI think the gnocchi is healthier with tomato sauce, with cream sauce is rather sinful hehe

@daphneYes, me too love the green color the spinach gave to the gnocchi.

@DollyWant to be my god-daughter? hehe You will not regret learning to cook well, the Chinese believe to win your man's heart is through his stomach.

@lenaThey are different. Ravioli is two thin pasta pieces with fillings. There’s really no limit to what you can put inside ravioli. Ravioli is generally square shaped with a border that looks like it was cut out with zig-zag scissors. Gnocchi – Gnocchi are shaped like little pill bugs. Gnocchi can really be likened to dumplings. If anything, they’re really like lumps of pasta. They don’t typically have meat or cheese or vegetable fillings.

@situapuiI think we can share the title. I don't pronounce that properly either. My Quay Lo had to ask me a few times when I asked him if he wants some gnocchi and he can teach me a hundred times, I will still pronounce it wrong and get him confused. hehe

I don't think I've ever had gnocchi before, but by the sounds of it, it sure sounds yummy. Doesn't seem like too much work either and very filling. My perfect dinner, I'd say. The gorgonzola sauce sounds lovely and creamy. I'm a big fan of creamy sauces. A divine dinner indeed, Veronica!

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A LITTLE ABOUT THIS QUAY PO

Before I was married to my "Quay Lo" (Guaylo) husband, I did not know how to bake or cook. Subsequently I learned some baking and cooking Western cuisine from him, and providing his food for him launched an interest in cooking in general. Many of my Chinese friends and family told me that "Quay" is the wrong spelling for devil in Cantonese. The right spelling should be "Kwai" or "Guay". Well, somehow I like the spelling "Quay" better although I have to agree that it does not sound very Cantonese. Try asking a Westerner to pronounce "Kwai" and you will probably hear "Quay" haha. Whether is "Quay" or "Kwai" or "Guay, just know the devil woman is me when you see Quay Po Cooks. My hubby said if people pronounce "Quay" as "Key" is even better because I am the key to his heart. LOL!

Only now, have I started to learn the traditional Cantonese cuisine of my Mum. She cooks fabulously and all her specialties are divine. These two interests, my husband's Western food, and my mother's traditional food, prompted me to document them so they will not be lost.

Here, I wish to share my cooking and baking experience with my readers. I also hope to inspire those who do not know how to cook or bake to do so because, trust me, if I can, you can too.

Something I'd like to mention is that I find that many people are rather unwilling to share their recipes. However, for me, I think differently. I think good recipes should be shared thus allowing as many people to enjoy it as possible. Unless those recipes are for doing business, I don't see why we want to keep them all to ourselves. So if you are generous in sharing your recipes, you are welcome to share on my blog. Send the recipes to me and better still with pictures of the final products and I will be very happy to post them them with credits to you of course.

Our cuisine is a deeply embedded part of our culture. When two cultures come together under the same roof the results in the kitchen can sometimes be comedic, sometimes confrontational, but more often it is a journey full of surprises and discovery. There is joy in our food. If we think upon this, it is intuitively obvious. This blog is a journey of joy and sharing, reflecting what the French like to call "joie de vivre" (joy of living). No one could be more different from one another then my husband and my mother. Yet one thing they share in common is knowing intuitively that food, cooking, and sharing can be avenues of joy in life itself. So herein, help yourself, to a little joy and , if you like it, share it with your own family and friends. Joy is something that should be shared.

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